In Montana, Casting A Web for Terrorists

[Rose Siding]

snip>
Rossmiller...now 35, she is a mother of three, a part-time paralegal and a $23,000-a-year municipal court judge in a town north of here......

Most of Rossmiller's terrorist tracking, though, has focused on foreign suspects, she said. By her count, she has turned over to federal investigators about 60 "packages" of information on suspects outside the United States.

She provided The Washington Post with hundreds of pages of e-mail exchanges that she said are transcripts of her conversations with would-be jihadists outside this country. Rossmiller said she meets nearly every week with U.S. intelligence contacts in Montana, and that they have periodically given her feedback about the usefulness of her information. She said she has been told that foreign intelligence officers have detained more than a dozen individuals whom she helped identify.
.....
Rossmiller snared the two American terrorism suspects, she said, while casting Internet hooks for bigger fish: Arabic-speaking extremists in the Middle East and in Pakistan. To find them, she said she has invented a cast of male online characters. They hold court -- spitting insults at "dirty Americans" and distributing videos of beheadings -- on several Islamic Web sites, according to transcripts of her e-mail exchanges.

Using those personas, Rossmiller said she strikes up conversations with chatty extremists. Rossmiller said she communicates primarily in Arabic, which she began learning after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. She also uses a computer translation program and said the FBI has occasionally provided her with a native Arabic speaker.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/03/AR2006060300530.html

[DRoseDARs]

1. There's a BIG difference between "detaining" someone and arresting someone

You could go into any redneck bar, strike up lively conversation about gays, get them to hold court by spitting insults at "dirty faggots," provide "packages" of information to local authorities, who would then go on to detain more than a dozen individuals whom you helped to identify...

...but none of that means shit if they've commited no crime other than freely speaking, because Lord knows the freedom of speech ONLY applies to Amuricans and only those who repeat Church- and government-approved opinions.

I call bullshit on this article. The "We're catching terrorists, but we can't show you any proof or evidence so just trust us..." line has been worn out like an aged hooker.

[Rose Siding]

2. It's weird that the FBI is providing a private citizen with a translator

Are they all caught up with the backlog of intercepts?

[DRoseDARs]

4. It's weird that a private citizen is seemingly getting better intel...

...than the government bodies developed to do just that: Gather intel. Again, I call bullshit. It's jingo-y, feel-good propaganda to make the sheeple feel that everything is peachy and even you can help in the War on Terror. Frankly, catching online predators is a better use of a private citizen's time.

[PSPS]

6. Read the wording carefully. I doubt she is telling the truth.

The piece always qualify the statements about what she's done, the FBI translator, etc., with, "She said." In other words, she was "holding court" with a "reporter," and they were mutually masturbating.

This thing reads like an account of some drunk blowhard who claims to know all sorts of important people personally, has a hush-hush job "with the gubmint," and then orders another pitcher after replying to your request for verifying details with, "I'm not at liberty to discuss it."

This is Montana, for crying out loud. An online translator? That's a laugh. While they may have limited usefulness, any native-speaking Arab would be able to tell it was a non-arab. I speak French fluently, and the output from those online translators is so stilted that it's hilarious.

HAHA. While I was reading this, it made me think of ...

[Rose Siding]

7. Ha! I imagined a more garden variety freeper -*except* for

the acknowledgement that the war has greatly increased anger toward the US (Allegedly!)

It does look like the trial stuff is legit. One guy's in for life.

[havocmom]

8. You might be surprised at what can happen up here

under the Big Sky. Happens we did have a few terrorist suspects apprehended in our area over the past few years. Large quantities of illegal weapons, scoping out banks and schools, then there was that ranch that got bought for cash shortly before the house blew up.

And just prior to 9-11-01, a local sheriff pulled over a car with a woman driving and a male passenger from far away. A few days later, when some FBI bulletins finallycame out, he realized he gave a ticket to the driver for a very dangerous man. We don't really need more police powers, we need better communication and less rivalry between agencies!

Big frontier means easy transport for all sorts of odds and ends. Amazing how often the few folks around here can see Leer jets flying so low they have to dodge many of our buttes here abouts. Mighty amazing what one can see out in the Big Lonely.

[Ptah]

3. Another snip from that article.

<snip>
Rossmiller's online experience, though, has soured her on many of
the methods of the Bush administration's fight against terrorism.
She said that the invasion of Iraq and the use of harsh interrogation
techniques has increased the number of people in the
Arab world who hate the United States.

"It has created more discord, and the numbers
of brothers interested in violence have grown," she said.

</snip>

[DRoseDARs]

5. Well, at least she has THAT much sense in her head. If she has actually..

...helped in the ARREST AND PROSECUTION of criminals, then great. But until there is public proof and evidence it's all just smoke and mirrors.

[TomClash]

9. Note that nothing is actually happening in Montana

All of her "work" seems to occur on the internet.

This is very odd. I'm skeptical for several reasons.

If she were acting as an agent, she would never know the results of her work or the value of her information.

If she were valuable she would never have testified against Anderson.

As another poster said, the article is laced with qualifiers like "she said" meaning there was little corroboration.

Even if true, she's doing nothing more than entrapping the stupid and untrained, mostly for what seem to be thoughtcrimes. I doubt that's a recipe for stopping "the next terrorist attack."

She said she has been told that foreign intelligence officers have detained more than a dozen individuals whom she helped identify. "Foreign Intelligence Officers?" Huh? Why are intelligence officers from other countries receiving the beneits of her surveillance? And why are they communicating wiht her directly?

"But when it comes to online deception, perfect Arabic does not matter much, Astley said. 'A lot of the people that are being dealt with are not the cream of educated society,' he said." Many of the 9/11 hijackers were pretty well educated. What about colloquialisms?

[Rose Siding]

10. Now here's an intriguing coincidence-

Roger Ailes runs down the Sunday shows on FDL. He writes:

Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer (Second Hour).......Wolf also debriefed Canada Ambassador Michael Wilson on the terror arrests in Great White North. Wilson didn’t know much. He said the suspects had accepted delivery of ammonium nitrate. He couldn’t explain how the suspects were "inspired by Al Queda" as Canadian authorities have asserted. Wilson said "the internet played an important part" in the suspects’ activities, but "couldn’t say" what part the internet played. Wilson was certain the plot didn’t involve targets in the United States.

http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/06/04/head-east/

Rats! Now I'm going to have to read up on this Canadian bust.